Down the hatch: Izze Esque and Izze Birch Beer

The intersection of the markets for bottled water and all-natural juice lies squarely in Boulder, Colorado, where the Izze Beverage Company has been making its sparkling juice beverages for the past seven years. In an effort to find out whether that should be your starting point or the place you avoid, Fat City recently sat down with two twist-off bottles of Izze, Izze Esque Low-Calorie Sparkling Mandarin and Izze Sparking Birch. At $4 per four-pack (on sale at Whole Foods), these beverages had their work cut out for them.

Izze Esque Low-Calorie Sparkling Mandarin. This is Izze’s healthful version of Crystal Light. At 60 calories, it has half the calories of a standard bottle. Under the twist-off cap was a weird surprise: This all-natural drink was an olfactory cousin to McDonald’s orange drink.

The peach-colored drink (again, we’re getting further from mandarin orange, here) was sweet up front, but that sweetness disappeared by the end of the sip. It had a slightly bitter aftertaste like the quinine in tonic water or budgety ginger ale. And though I was drinking a beverage, my tongue felt dry after several gulps.

All in all, this tastes like a regular Izze that’s been poured warm over a massive amount of ice. It’s probably worth it, tastewise, to spring for the 60 extra calories per bottle.